It’s Time to Spring into Cleaning

By Harry Kaplowitz, iContact Strategic Advisor

I don’t know about you, but it’s starting to look more and more like spring here in North Carolina. The weather is notching north of 60°, the sun seems to linger just a little longer, and the grass in my backyard is growing like it’s the middle of May.

So if the urge strikes, don’t restrict your efforts to your basement and your junk drawer. It’s time to go Mr. Clean on your email list.

Don’t worry, we’re not just going to erase everything. You can be list-hygienic and also tactical in your approach.

The key to list hygiene is separation. You need to identify what’s clean and what’s not. And by clean, I mean healthy. This metaphor is getting mixed, so try to stay with me.

If a subscriber opens your emails with regularity, that’s a healthy email address, clean as a whistle. You’ll want to hold onto them. If they click, even better. Consider sending them a thank you or special offer for being such awesome subscribers.

Now, you’ll have subscribers who open only occasionally, maybe one in every seven messages. That’s okay. You can control a lot of things about your email marketing, but you can’t directly control subscriber engagement. You’ll want to hold onto these subscribers, too, but keep a close eye on them. If their minimal engagement begins to trail off, don’t be afraid to cut the cord.

The final set of subscribers is your unengaged ones. They haven’t opened in months, maybe longer. And when they did open, they never clicked on anything. You’ve got two options here. On one hand, you can send them a few more emails to see if their habits change. Maybe include a special offer to see if that entices them. This kind of re-engagement campaign is common and should be done on a semi-regular basis to combat list attrition.

Or you can nip it in the bud (see what I did there?) and delete them from your account. Don’t worry; they can always resubscribe if they decide they miss your emails.

The goal of list hygiene isn’t so much a purging of contacts as it is a review of your subscriber base. If your open rate is high, and you can’t identify anyone who needs to be re-engaged, don’t create a problem where there isn’t one. Pat yourself on the back and continue emailing as normal. Don’t feel the need to delete just because your open rate dipped a little.

And at the end of the day, when you’re satisfied with your list hygiene, don’t be afraid to tackle your Image Library and Drafts folder, too.

*The need to clean things up is often accompanied by the need to be “crafty.” Consider yourself warned.

Article Info

Mar 15, 2013Written by Harry Kaplowitz, who has written 34 articles for the iContact Blog.